Warning: this blog post does not tackle the big issues of the week. But it is about one of life's recurring frustrations. Printers. Guardian Money reported yesterday how printing companies are screwing consumers with smaller cartridges. Measure-for-measure, ink is now more expensive than vintage champagne. Hewlett Packard cartridges, for example, are five times worse value than a decade ago.

The other manufacturers are just as bad, making cartridges smaller and harder to refill. They've got ink on their hands. Epson say the technology is more efficient now, meaning it's better value. They're efficient all right, when they work. The machines are the most temperamental, rage-inducing beasts ever inflicted on us.

A friend of mine says the conspiracy is really in razor blades. Like printers, they literally give away the razors and then stick it to you on the blades. He spends something like $40 for a package of blades at Costco.

—— Enbrel, a widely-prescribed drug used for treating several autoimmune diseases, costs $10 per milligram. That’s $10,000 per gram, or $4.5 million per pound. -——

I’m on a similarly expensive biologic anti-inflammatory drug. Without it, I would be crippled and blind. I would have other symptoms too, which I would rather not describe.

Because of healthcare “reforms,” my out-of-pocket cost is now $700/mo.

But it won’t be long before I look back on this as the good old days. In Canada, my med is simply unavailable on the national health. In the UK, patients are entitled to one five-week treatment/year. (I hear this on RA chat boards.)

With these meds, I can play b-ball at age 50.

I’m preparing for the inevitable, though, which is the inexpensive and toxic combo of mega-doses of methotrexate and steroids.

Years ago, I had a Cannon inkjet. It worked fine, until I needed to replace the cartridges. Then, the printhead would stall or the machine would send an error regarding the ink cartridge. The machine became junk.

Next, I bought a Lennox inkjet. It had a short warranty (60 days, IIRC). Over the two months I had it, I printed about 20 sheets. Then, the printhead jammed. Of course, it was out of warranty. I never could get it work. It was a piece of JUNK.

Next, I bought a desktop Minolta PagePro b/w laser. Great little printer. I seldom print more than a few pages a month. Every time I would turn it on to print some thing — no problem, great printing results. That is — until Windows7 64-bit. No driver. Someone had created a quick-fix driver for the 32-bit, but nothing for the 64-bit. I sent the printer to a relative who had also inherited my older XP laptop when I finally bought a new Win7 laptop. That Minolta was still using the original cartridge after about 5 years of my owning it.

Next, about 4 years ago, I ran across a Xerox color laser. It, too, works fine and is still on the original cartridges. When I upgraded from XP to Win7 with a new laptop and later a new desktop, I discovered the Xerox had built-in wireless. The laptop recognized it and set it up with no problem. I have it wire-connected to the desktop computer.

The beauty with laser printers is that their printing heads don’t clog like inkjets.

Laser printers are very cheap. The Xerox color I got on cyberMonday for $150. I have occasionally seen color lasers for under $100.

“Buy a cheap printer everytime you need ink and put the old printer in the landfill.”

One problem is that the cartridges you get when you buy the printer are often reduced capacity cartridges, so they don’t last as long as the ones you pay full price for. Personally, I would just buy a small color laser printer, because they are pretty affordable nowadays, and the toner is usually at least half the price of inkjet ink, per page.

For years i have used old Lexmark printers, z22, and now z32 and z705, which, like old ford 390 engines i used to have, burn a lot of “oil,” but are very easy to refill. And using bulk ink for about 1.50 peer ounce, it cost about 1.00 per refill if you factor in the cart.

The best buy on ink used to be from alotofthings.com, but they abruptly stopped, yet http://www.oddparts.com/ is a Christian company which sells the correct ink, and i have found pigment based black ink for my Lexmark model on ebay that works ok.

Same with real or remanufactured carts (7.00), and i have refilled the black at least 25 times before they quit. Some of the remanufactured ones had a whoiler sponge, which Lexmark carts used to have.

Color carts do not last as long.

To refill the black cart, put a hole in the top front (above the cartridge head) middle using a small hot nail, and use a syringe (the cooking baster type they sell at some dollar stores are legal and work fine) to inject about half an ounce of ink into the cart. Use gloves, and hold over a liberal newspaper when filling.

Soak toilet tissue in hot water and press against the bottom of the head if needed to get ink flowing, but never leave carts outside printer without sealing the heads with tape.

Lexmark are not the best printers, and they went out of the inket business, but if you see any old ones are a yard sale that work, this may be a viable way to save money.

22
posted on 02/26/2013 8:32:07 AM PST
by daniel1212
(Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)

meth is probably in my future ( for those reading, methotrexate is the same drug they use in chemotherapy )

I just took my second dose of that last night. I've been on Humira, and the normal dose wasn't helping anymore, so I'm now taking a shot every week, but it's still barely working for me. My Gastro Dr is hoping that it will improve the effectiveness of the Humira.

Mark

28
posted on 02/26/2013 9:38:08 AM PST
by MarkL
(Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)

My HP Photosmart wireless printer is a piece of crap. Cartridges are relatively cheap but they don’t last long. Besides poor performance, HP’s bloatware software and frequent crashes from network connectivity, my biggest objection is that the printer will not accept refilled cartridges - apparently the cartridges have a chip in them that tells the printer they are empty even if it has ink in it. If I had known this upfront I would not have bought it. No more HP products for me.

They used to make kits for this that worked well with some older printers. I had one for my old Canon BJC-240.

There was a small drill bit on a plastic head, you’d drill out the plug carefully at the edge, set it aside. Use the accordion-syringe to inject the ink into the plug port, til the “sponge” wouldn’t soak any more in. Then, instead of just putting the plug back in, and redrilling next time resulting in the plug being destroyed after 2-3 times, take a bit of string, wrap it around the bottom of the plug, and pass it up the groove made by the drill so the end stuck out, and tape it down with a bit of scotch tape as a small amount of wicking was inevitable and it kept your hands cleaner.

We indelicately called this departure from the directions “tamponing” and it would allow a single cart to last until you screwed it up, basically. 10+ uses was pretty normal.

35
posted on 02/27/2013 12:16:45 PM PST
by Fire_on_High
(RIP City of Heroes and Paragon Studios, victim of the Obamaconomy.)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.